Wang Liuyi/Wang Qianyi win gold medal in synchronized swimming duet: make up for the difficulty gap with completion
2024-08-15
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In the early morning of August 11th, Beijing time, an interesting scene occurred at the Paris Aquatic Center: after the Chinese combination Wang Liuyi/Wang Qianyi were confirmed as the winner of the synchronized swimming duet championship, the coaching team headed by head coach Zhang Xiaohuan and duet coach Wang Jiuli showed the rings and accessories specially customized for this Olympics in front of the broadcast camera. One of the bracelets was inlaid with two small gold medals. "Before we came, we hoped to win both gold medals in this Olympics."
On this night, the coaches' vision finally became a reality. With the continuous efforts of several generations of Chinese synchronized swimmers, the Chinese synchronized swimming team finally won two gold medals in the team event and the duet event in this Olympic Games. In the synchronized swimming duet free routine competition held in the early morning of the 11th, the Guangdong sisters Wang Liuyi/Wang Qianyi appeared last and scored 289.6916 points, thus successfully winning the championship with a total score of 566.4783 points. After the game, both the two sisters and the two coaches exclaimed: "This duet gold medal was won thrillingly!"
The opponent "too curled" brought heavy pressure, and the two sisters won a thrilling victory
In this Olympics, the synchronized swimming duet event is divided into two competitions: duet technical free choice and duet free choice. The scores of the two competitions are included in the total score to determine the ranking. After the duet technical free choice on August 9, Wang Liuyi/Wang Qianyi ranked first with 276.7867 points, and their lead over the second place was only 9.5334 points. "Unlike the previous group events where we led by a huge margin, the 9-point lead in the duet event can only be considered weak under the new rules. The duet events are all twins. They challenged the high difficulty (movements) in the finals and also showed a high degree of completion. If our set of movements was not completed well in the second game, or the movements were not recognized, we might lose dozens of points." Wang Jiuli said.
In fact, Wang Liuyi/Wang Qianyi only showed a technical difficulty level of 40.050 and a tumbling difficulty level of 51.650 in this competition. Compared with the second-place British combination and the third-place Dutch combination, they did not have an advantage. The tumbling difficulty level was 5 to 6 points lower than the two combinations. "They were crazy in this free program! We didn't expect them to be so 'competitive'. The difficulty increase was even greater than we expected. We knew their difficulty after we declared it, but there was no way to change it. We were preparing for the free program under great pressure." The two sisters said that the free program was full of uncertainty. Other national combinations added such a high difficulty, which might result in penalty points, or they might perform well. "They all performed well today. We can only rely on our completion to make up for the difficulty difference with them."
"When we finished swimming and sat down on the shore, only the results were shown on the big screen, but not the ranking. We didn't dare to stand up and cheer." But at the moment when Wang Liuyi/Wang Qianyi's overall ranking finally appeared on the big screen, the accumulated pressure was finally completely released. They covered their faces and cried after winning the gold medal.
The pressure on the sisters comes not only from their opponents being too "competitive", but also from the regrets between the two. At the Tokyo Olympics three years ago, elder sister Wang Liuyi was unable to participate due to illness, which became a regret in the heart of younger sister Wang Qianyi. In August 2023, Wang Liuyi temporarily left the arena, but returned to the arena soon after, and the two sisters partnered to win the doubles championship at the Hangzhou Asian Games. In this Olympics, the two of them competed in the doubles event together, and Wang Qianyi was under much more pressure than her sister. "After the game, my sister cried much harder than me. She had too much pressure to vent. She was worried that after sharing her experience in the Olympics with me, I would choose to come back and compete with her, and in the end we didn't get the results we wanted."
In previous interviews, Wang Qianyi repeatedly said that she was most grateful to her sister Wang Liuyi for coming back to compete with her. In response to this statement, Wang Liuyi said that she was more grateful that her sister still wanted to stand on the Olympic stage with her after going through so many competitions. "In this competition, we fully demonstrated what we wanted to express and also released the pressure."
The "Chinese style" in the water conquers the international arena
In the two competitions, Wang Liuyi and Wang Qianyi performed two different sets of movements. In the duet technical free choice competition, the sisters' set of movements was named "Lotus", while the set of movements in the duet free choice competition was named "Leopard". After the competition, the sisters said that when they and the coaching team were choosing the movements, they wanted to use more movements with Chinese elements. After a long period of training, they gradually took shape. "One set of movements represents animals and the other represents plants. We want to express different feelings in nature. The "Lotus" is more gentle, and the "Leopard" will be faster and more explosive."
In order to show as many Chinese elements as possible in the Olympic Games, the sisters and their coaching team spent a lot of effort in polishing "Lotus" and "Leopard". "At that time, we were also considering that if we did it too softly, we might be penalized due to cultural differences." Wang Jiuli said that this concern continued until the final stage of the movement formation. At that time, the team invited a very famous choreographer in the field of modern dance in China. "After seeing their body shapes, the choreographer felt that they were particularly suitable for soft and hard movements, and were very suitable for presenting the forbearance and tenacity of traditional Chinese culture in their movements, so he finally decided on this theme."
In addition to training, the two sisters also watch a lot of stage plays and dance dramas. This way, they can draw inferences from other examples and bring more inspiration to their own optional movements, including famous dance dramas such as "Peacock" and "Wing Chun". This "influence" eventually helped them stand on the highest podium of the Olympics. "The movements of "Peacock" and "Wing Chun" are soft but firm, combining softness, speed and strength, which is very similar to our characteristics. We also absorbed a lot of movements from dance dramas and put them into the two sets of optional movements."
In this Olympics, the Chinese synchronized swimming team added Chinese elements to the five sets of movements in the group and duet events. In addition to the "Lotus" and "Leopard" in the duet events, the set of movements used in the first group event - the group technical free choice, included a large number of movements imitating Wing Chun in the water. "These movements are very culturally rich and recognizable. We showed them during the performance, and both the judges and the audience could tell at a glance that the inspiration came from Chinese Kung Fu." Zhang Xiaohuan introduced that in the third group technical free choice, the "Light of Life" choreographed by the Chinese synchronized swimming team had a set of movements that required athletes to build the oracle character "mountain" underwater. This design also wanted to show Chinese culture in the movements. "Our theme is to go through the darkness, cross the mountains and rivers, and finally find this kind of brilliance of life. The successful victory in the last two events not only proves that our movement choreography is amazing enough, but also proves that these choreography with Chinese elements can indeed attract attention in the international arena."
Yangcheng Evening News special correspondent in Paris Lv Hang Su Xing
Photo courtesy of Xinhua News Agency
